My first self made knife

Jan Hendrik · Dec 9, 2014

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This is the first knife I made on myself. I displayed the knife at the Baobab knife show in Pretoria, South Africa where it won first place in the novice category for best fixed blade art knife. The blade is mirror polished 12C27 stainless steel, bolsters 416 stainless steel and handle material is African blackwood. I will be making a lot more knives in the coming year. Already have two shows booked for 2015!

RDP · Dec 9, 2014

Nicely done Jan, congratulations on your winning, hope to see more of your work,

Richard.

don hicks · Dec 9, 2014

That is a beautiful piece, worthy of the recognition it received at the knife show. Looking forward to seeing more of your work.
in the future, Thanks for posting.
Cheers
Don

Fred Bowen · Dec 9, 2014

Beautiful knife, Jan. I like the flow and can almost feel how it would feel in the hand. Is blackwood as hard, close-grained and dense as it looks?

Jan Hendrik · Dec 9, 2014

Fred Bowen said:
Beautiful knife, Jan. I like the flow and can almost feel how it would feel in the hand. Is blackwood as hard, close-grained and dense as it looks?

Fred, the blackwood is very hard and dense. It is mostly used on top range musical instruments as inlay, knobs, flutes etc. It is also one of the most expensive woods you can buy!

Jan Hendrik · Dec 9, 2014

Thanks for kind replies!

silverchip · Dec 9, 2014

Very nice Jan!!! Is that "Blackwood"Gaboon Ebony then??

davidshe · Dec 9, 2014

Congratulations Jan! That is a very nice knife.

thughes · Dec 9, 2014

Wow Jan, very clean knife. Nicely done.

Todd

Ed Westerly · Dec 9, 2014

Well done and congrats on the award. You obviously put a lot of work into that knife.

Jan Hendrik · Dec 9, 2014

silverchip said:
Very nice Jan!!! Is that "Blackwood"Gaboon Ebony then??

No it is not the Gaboon Ebony (Diospyros Crassiflora). It is the African Blackwood (Dalbergia Melanoxylon).

Jan Hendrik · Dec 9, 2014

Ed Westerly said:
Well done and congrats on the award. You obviously put a lot of work into that knife.

Thank you Ed! I re-sanded and polished the blade 5 times because I was not happy with the mirror polish on it. And I still wanted a better finish, but I was on the verge of giving up at that point, so polished the blade as best I could.

Ed Westerly · Dec 9, 2014

Polishing is quite an art. It takes more effort for me than the engraving, by far. It always seems like I get 98% of the metal perfect, and there is one tiny spot that just won't buff out!!! That last 2% is the killer.

monk · Dec 9, 2014

i can only say, if there's such a thing as a "classic knife", this would surely be in such category !

Jan Hendrik · Dec 9, 2014

Ed Westerly said:
Polishing is quite an art. It takes more effort for me than the engraving, by far. It always seems like I get 98% of the metal perfect, and there is one tiny spot that just won't buff out!!! That last 2% is the killer.

You can say that again! Going back to 400, 800, 1000, 1200 and 1500 sanding paper 5 times because of tiny marks/lines on the surface really gets to you!

monk said:
i can only say, if there's such a thing as a "classic knife", this would surely be in such category !

Thank you very much!

Dani Girl · Dec 10, 2014

Awesome work

Arnaud Van Tilburgh · Dec 10, 2014

Nice work on that knife.
About polishing any metal or other material, this is best done by hand, not the buffer.
Use a leather lap that is glued on wood, and fill that with one carat of the finest diamond powder.
This way you can polish almost everything high-end.

Jan Hendrik · Dec 10, 2014

Arnaud Van Tilburgh said:
Nice work on that knife.
About polishing any metal or other material, this is best done by hand, not the buffer.
Use a leather lap that is glued on wood, and fill that with one carat of the finest diamond powder.
This way you can polish almost everything high-end.

Thank you for the tip Arnaud. I will give it a try sometime.

colinskelly · Dec 10, 2014

Beautiful work Jan. Thank you for sharing

Bob Ryder · Dec 10, 2014

thanks for sharing. beautiful piece of work.

My first self made knife

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